Vendors will submit product proposals to the CIC for review by the CIC membership. The following areas are to be addressed in the initial proposal:

1. proposal documents should be submitted directly to the CIC Center for Library Initiatives. The charge of the CLI is:

• to gather and organize proposal information,
• to conduct preliminary negotiations
• to poll members on their interest in participating
• to handle the administrative/processing aspects of the proposal, allowing the vendor to utilize a single point of contact for both proposal negotiation, invoicing and contract administration.

2. timing –most proposals will take a minimum of 3-6 months for review and decision-making. Proposal timelines should be set accordingly.
3. the proposal should provide an adequate evaluation period for general access to the production product.
4. Vendors should supply copies of all proposal documents (including spreadsheets) in electronic form so that these can be made available to the Electronic Resource Officers of the CIC on a domain and password protected website.

    

   Product Description – each proposal should:

     1.  provide a detailed description of the product or products being proposed. This should                include:

• describe whether this is a lease/license or outright purchase
• dates of coverage for the costs shown
• a full list of content in full-text or terms such as the percentage of titles that will remain in the list for at least "x" years.

2. address backfile access and archiving processes, pricing and residual goods retained by the library.
3. address vendor experience with the product in a production environment with research libraries of similar size.
4. describe the differences between the print and electronic formats of the product
5. provide information about a test period and trial for product evaluation.

Cost Information:

1. all cost information must be explained in detail. The following can be used as a checklist to make sure that all necessary information is included:

• purchase and/or subscription cost – describe in detail exactly what is included in the proposal including:
• subscription dates and cost
• backfile costs
• permanent access costs
• relation of print to electronic costs, including how any credits are calculated
• cost of upgrades (e.g. if products change from DOS to windows)

2. pricing can be presented in one of two formats:

   a) a single price (for purchase or subscription) for the entire consortium, providing the formula and cost basis for this

   b) pricing which indicates the cost by institution (presented to indicate costs for the main campus and costs for regional campuses, if appropriate), utilizing the same formula and cost basis for each

3. the proposal should clearly explain the formula used to calculate past purchase credits (if applicable)
4. the CIC assumes that all pricing will be based on a per university model. If the vendor proposes to charge the regional campuses separately the proposal must include an explanation and cost basis for this.

If the product is to utilize a vendor or third-party server the following information and statistics should be provided:

• scheduled down-times
• best, worst and average connect time
• number of ‘turn-aways’, by time of day
• log-off procedures
• time-out procedures
• what customization would be necessary and possible by each institution
• can the vendor provide both IP and ID access? Can such access be provided through a commercial vendor utilizing a valid IP address?
• what browser versions are supported
• describe printing and downloading functionality and detail

The proposal should also include clear definitions of technical terms, such as the definition of a "session" or of a "simultaneous use."

All reports should be produced on a monthly and yearly basis, with separate reports for each participating library, plus an aggregate CIC report. Daily reports should be available upon request. At a minimum, data should be provided on the following:

• Total number of queries, by database or title of work, by IP address/locator.
• Number of sessions (logins) and average length of session.
• Number of turnaways, by time of day.
• Number of citations/items retrieved, by database, if appropriate
• Peak and average amount of simultaneous use
• Hours of server downtime

The CIC expects that the user data gathered in this process will not be used for other purposes or sold to others.

Contract Language:

1. As the CIC represents institutions in a number of different states and the majority of CIC members are state institutions, we will always request that language related to governing law and indemnification be deleted or modified.
2. The defined User population should allow for the following situations:

• walk-in users at campus locations
• distance learning students
• authenticated users logging in from remote locations (this would include distance learning users)
• enrolled students
• faculty
• staff

3. The CIC member libraries expect that all contract language will reflect fair use guidelines.
4. Proposals should address interlibrary loan use in detail.

    

   The CIC

   General Information

    

   The Committee on Institutional Cooperation has been in existence since 1958. It includes the following member universities:

   Indiana University
   Michigan State University
   Northwestern University
   Ohio State University
   Pennsylvania State University
   Purdue University
   The University of Chicago
   The University of Illinois
   The University of Iowa
   The University of Michigan
   The University of Minnesota
   The University of Wisconsin-Madison

    

   CIC member universities house 13 ARL libraries. Jointly the CIC libraries hold 60 million volumes, with 2 million volumes added per year. Within the consortium $238 million is spent annually on library services, of that $75 million is designated for acquisitions.

   See the attached Appendix A for a listing of the campuses and FTE information.

   Refer to the CIC Management of Electronic Resource Agreements for additional information on CIC-wide negotiations.

    

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